Diversity and Leadership

The Challenge

Why Must We Embrace Diversity?

Simply enforcing government regulations will not get you to be the best. To obtain the fullest competitive edge you need to create great teams by using the full potential of every individual. A team is much more than a group. A group is collection of individuals where each person is working towards his or her own personal goal or agenda, where as a team is a collection of individuals working towards a common goal or vision. This creates a synergy effect within the team -- one plus one equals much more than one.

An individual, acting alone, can accomplish much; but a group of people acting together in a unified force can accomplish great wonders. This is because team members understand each other and support each other. Their main goal is to see the team accomplish its mission. Personal agendas do not get in the way of team goals. Personal agendas are a huge waste on an organization's resources because they do not support its goals or mission.

By using the synergy effect of teams you create a competitive advantage over other organizations that are using individuals acting alone. You are getting more for your efforts!

If team members do not accept others for what they are, they will be unable to use the abilities of each team member to fill in their own weak areas. Hence, the team effort develops knowledge and skill gaps that often lead to failure or less successful outcomes. Their only goals becomes the ones on their personal agendas...to make them as an individual look good while ignoring the needs of the team and the organization.

Embracing diversity is the first item for building teams. Almost every team building theory states that to build a great team, there must be a diverse group of people on the team, that is, you must avoid choosing people who are like you. Choosing people like yourself to be on teams is similar to inbreeding - it multiplies the flaws. Compare this to the other end of the continuum -- having an assorted group of individuals which diminishes the flaws of others.

Why Is Embracing Diversity Such A Huge Challenge?

Some biases are good as they allow us to assume that something is true without proof. Otherwise, we would have to start each new experience learning about everything that we do. Biases allow us to bring past experiences to present experiences.

However, if we allow our bias to shade our perceptions of what people are capable of, then that bias becomes harmful. We start prejudging others on what we think that they can and cannot do.

When people communicate, they also use these biases or filters. For example, if you know me as a heavy drinker and I tell you I was in a fight last night, then you might draw a picture of me in a bar room brawl. On the other hand, if you know me to be a professional boxer and I told you the same thing, then you would probably visualize me in the boxing ring. Where these biases become destructive is when we prejudge others.

Simply giving a class on diversity will not erase these biases. Indeed, even the best training will not erase most of these deeply rooted beliefs. Training can only help us to become aware of them so that we can make a conciseness effort to change. Training diversity is more than a two-hour class; it involves workshops, role models, one-on-ones, etc. But most of all, it involves a heavy commitment by the organization's leadership. Not only the formal leadership but also the informal leadership.

Embracing diversity is more than tolerating people who are different. It means actively welcoming and involving them by:

• Developing an atmosphere in which it is safe for all employees to ask for help. People should not be viewed as weak if they ask for help. This is what helps to build great teams - joining weakness with strengths to get a goal or objective accomplished.
• Actively seeking information from people from a variety of backgrounds and cultures in order to develop a broad picture. Also, including everyone on the problem solving and decision making process.
• Including people who are different than you in informal gatherings such as lunch, coffee breaks, and spur of the moment meetings.
• Creating a team spirit in which every member feels a part of.

What is Human Resource Development Role in Diversity?

The role that HRD needs to excel in is by making greater efforts in effectively training the soft skills. This includes such subjects as diversity, communication, and people skills that allow people to understand each other and develop good team skills. Every team member must not only be able to understand and work with all the other team members, but they must also want to. This should be HRD's number one priority -- to build real teams, not just groups of people with titles called Teams.

What Exactly Does Diversity Include?

This is where HRD needs to focus its efforts -- helping people to realize that it takes a wide variety of people to become the best and that they need to have the ability to be able to rely on everyone within their team, no matter how different another person may be. An organization needs controllers, thinkers, dreamers, doers, strategizers, analyzers, organizers, and team builders to reach the goals that make an organization the best. It does not need people fighting and distrusting each other!

Organizations need an extremely diverse group of people on each and every team. For example, having a group of team builders will get you nowhere, as everyone will be out trying to create a team. Likewise, having a group of doers will get you nowhere as everyone will be trying to accomplish something without a clear goal or vision to guide them. Most organizations picture diversity in very limited terms. The essence of diversity should NOT be to box it in, such as race, religion, sex, age; but rather to picture it as the uniqueness of each and every individual. Only by accepting the uniqueness of others, rather than scorning them, will people want to help the team to succeed as a whole.

How We Tend to Categorize People

It is these characteristics and experiences that make a worker unique. Diversity occurs when we see all these unique characteristics, and realize that workers are more valuable because of their differences.

Why Does Culture Matter?

• It is the right thing to do.
• To attract good people into their ranks, organizations must take the moral path. Good organizations attract good people, while bad organizations attract bad people.
• It helps to build teams which create synergy...organizations get more for their money.
• It broadens their customer base in a very competitive environment.

What Diversity Goals Does an Organization Need?

The second is inspiring diversity in the work force. Workers want to belong to an organization that believes in them, no matter what kind of background or culture they come from. They, like their leadership, want to be productive, share in the profits, and be a totally dynamic work force. Almost no one sets out to do wrong. If the leadership embraces diversity, then this goal will be relatively easy. It is much easier to train people when they have role models to base their behaviors on. Also, you will have the backing from the very people who can support you in your efforts.

How Does One Go About Training Diversity?

• Training is the acquisition of technology which permits employees to perform their present job to standards. It improves human performance on the job the employee is presently doing or is being hired to do.
• Education is training people to do a different job. Unlike training, which can be fully evaluated immediately upon the learners returning to work, education can only be completely evaluated when the learners move on to their future jobs. We can test them on what they learned while in training, but we cannot be fully satisfied with the evaluation until we see how well they perform their new jobs.
• Development is training people to acquire new horizons, technologies, or viewpoints. It enables leaders to guide their organizations on to new expectations by being proactive rather than reactive. It enables workers to create better products, faster services, and more competitive organizations. It is learning for growth of the individual, but not related to a specific present or future job. Unlike training and education, which can be completely evaluated, development cannot always be fully evaluated. This does not mean that we should abandon development programs, as helping people to grow and develop is what keeps an organization in the forefront of competitive environments.

• Training - it will be used to increase performance on the present job, that is, being able to perform as a team member.
• Education - it will be used to increase performance in a different job, instead of being a group member, the learner will become a team member.
• Development - it will be used to acquire a new viewpoint so that the organization can become more competitive.

Also, soft skills generally fall under the domain of attitudes. When we train a task, we are teaching a person to perform a new Skill, learn a new body of Knowledge, and display a new Attitude. The type of task determines what percent of the KSA is devoted to each domain.

For example, training someone to operate a forklift requires about 80% skill (eye hand coordination, deftness with controls, etc.), 10% knowledge (location of controls, rules, etc.), and about 10% attitude (eagerness to learn, following safety rules, etc.).

Training someone to set up formulas in a spreadsheet might require about 20% skill (typing, using a mouse, etc.), 70% knowledge (procedures, reading and interpreting formulas, etc.), and 10% attitude (how hard they believe the task to be, belief that their work will benefit the organization, etc.).

Training a diversity topic would require about 15% skill (interacting with others, soliciting input, etc.), 10% knowledge (knowing culture differences, knowing the terms, etc.), and about 75% attitude (responding to others, changing a deeply held belief, overcoming harmful biases, etc.)

How Do Attitudes Affect Training Diversity?

Attitudes have been defined in a variety of ways, but at the core of most definitions is the notion of evaluation. Thus, attitudes are commonly viewed as summary evaluations of objects (e.g. oneself, other people, issues, etc.) along a dimension ranging from positive to negative. Attitudes encompass, or are closely related to, our opinions and beliefs and are based upon our experiences. Training that produces tangible results starts by changing behavior, which ultimately changes attitudes.

Since our attitudes are deeply rooted, they are very hard to change. Attitudes are latent constructs and are not observable in themselves. That is, we infer that people have attitudes by what they say or do. What they actually say or do are behaviors. Thus the training developer must identify some sort of behavior that would seem to be representative of the display of the attitude in question. This behavior can then be measured as an index of the attitude construct. For example, if you are training diversity, you cannot be sure that you have eliminated prejudice from a learner. Therefore you have to measure behaviors, such as showing respect for other cultures.

This does not mean you cannot go after changing attitudes. In some cases, it is a must. For example, the 1997 Texaco headlines about the racial slurs of its leaders show that attitudes must be changed. If you only rely upon the correct behaviors being displayed without attitudes being changed, then expect to see a headline like this about your organization. When we attempt to display behaviors that do not coincide with our attitudes, then expect to make big mistakes. As stated earlier, training diversity is about 75% attitude. Attempting to change only the other 25% will not work. That 75% attitude is just too great of a number to ignore.

Another example is safety. Being able to perform safely in the work environment is not just about knowledge and skills. It also requires the correct attitude. For some tasks, doing something the safe way requires more effort or work. Thus employees must have the correct attitude towards safety or when it counts the most, they will relapse back into the faster or easier method rather than the safe method. And this is not right for their coworkers as they deserve a safe working environment!

Can Attitudes Be Changed?

When asked what tuition would be fair, those that heard that it should be raised, thought, on the average, that it should be $582. Those that heard that it should be lowered, thought that a fair price would be $412. The involvement of body movement had a striking effect. Students who nodded their head as they heard the $750 editorial thought a fair tuition would be $646, while those that shook their heads thought it should be $467.

These motor responses that signal agreement or disagreement had a profound effect on attitudes -- effects that are not trivial.

To train soft skills, HRD practitioners must picture themselves not only as trainers, but also as educators and developers. To do so, requires a different mindset. With our greater preoccupation with human relations, the affective domain (attitudes) cannot be ignored, regardless of the difficulties encountered.

What Are Some Pointers For Training Attitudes?

Training Development

  |  9
A |  8
t |  7
t |  6
i |  5
t |  4
u |  3
d |  2
e |  1
  |  0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9
   ______________________________         
   Behavior

Some attitude changes do not require such a drastic change. For example, when people are outside on break and they put their cigarette butts out on the ground instead of in the ash receptacles calls for less drastic behavioral changes. The effort (and the amount of effort that you would want to expend towards the problem) to change their behavior would be on the scale of 1 or 2.

Training Techniques

See Changing Behaviors, Coaching, Implementing Training for some other techniques.

Evaluating Diversity Training

• Records - These include observed behavior such as attendance records, anecdotal records, incidents, and interviews.
• Self Reports - Such as inventories of employees reporting directly about their own attitudes.
• Reports of Others - These include information, rating scales, and interview results of others reporting about the attitude of an employee or team.
• Sociometric Techniques - Such as sociograms and social distance scales in which members of a group report about their attitudes towards one another.
• Projective Techniques - Picture presentations and sentence completion in which the learner supplies a response to the stimulus.

• Determine from the learning objectives what specific attitude (desired behavior) is being trained.
• Determine the behavior (construct) that will best exhibit this attitude. Concentrate on one or two specific behaviors during any given evaluation period.
• Decide on the most appropriate way to get the information.
• Select or develop an instrument for collecting the information. Collect only the information that will provide evidence of the desired behavior.
• Decide who will be observed and when. Obtain as many observations as possible and review patterns of change.
• Confer with the learners to provide feedback.

• Attitudes are impossible to measure directly. The evaluator is relying on inference.
• Behaviors, beliefs, and feelings, are not consistent, even when we assume they reflect a single attitude. The pattern of behavior may be very complex and be a manifestation of more than one attitude.
• Attitudes do not stand still long enough for a one time snap shot measurement. Frequent measurements at selected intervals will reflect a more accurate representation of a consistent attitude.
• Certain attitudes do not have a universal agreement on their nature or what the correct behavioral display is.
• Collection of certain types of personal data about learners may lead to legal complications involving their rights to privacy.

Team Building

Team building activities have always been popular, but be careful that you do not divide your workers! For example, one company Christmas party did not work as it was supposed to. Because of accident liability, the company chose not to serve liquor, but instead, let employees buy it at a cash bar. Many employees only made slightly above minimum wage and found the charge per drink high and consequently complained about the party. While the employees from the higher socioeconomic levels did not find the drink charge a problem. The two groups also approached the party differently. The more affluent group enjoyed dressing up for the occasion while the rest were annoyed about having to purchase a dress or suit. To further complicate matters, the affluent group didn't anticipate the needs of their co-workers at the Christmas party. A small third faction objected to Christmas altogether and stayed away from the party. The result was groups of workers who became more distant from each other. This distance further eroded the closeness necessary for building teams. As a result, a company function that was designed to build teams actually ended up dividing the employees into three camps.

Diversity Activities

References